[elevensies]

What impresses me most about McDonald's is the highly effective and efficient incentive structure. You have the franchise owner who is very committed financially and can make a high income, plus lots of low cost labor following a very precise process. And they seem to be able to replicate it at almost any scale.

What impresses me least about McDonald's is their ruthless child-targeted advertising.

EDIT: in sort of a quaint way the incentive structure is reminiscent of the manorial system.

[pitt1980]

you might enjoy:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2484147-lessons-...

from Ed Weissman (who's #6 in overall karma on HN)

[afterburner]

Not sure I like his "back in the day" reality distortion: "It was nothing like today: high volume, fast paced, brutal hard work, low pay, and 10 other kids ready to take your job if you didn't like it."

Right, because it's nothing like that now.

[wapz]

I totally read that in the opposite way at first. I thought he was saying "today is high volume, fast paced..." then I read the rest of the article and was a little confused.

[erikb]

Why do you think this was an enjoyable read?

It's probably bad to guess Ed's personality from just one article, but most of what he says is said by the bullies in software dev who push their own tasks to "Done" on the cost of the whole team, to then say how much more efficient they are since they have closed more tasks than anybody else.

Also the goal is not to beat Mozart, but to provide regular, recurring quality background music for tv show episodes every day, if you want to earn your bread and butter with it, and not just win a price. That's done best by a cooperating team, not by a rockstar. So if he was part of the "top 5 of 60" employees it may have been an improvement to overall results if there were just the other 55 employees. The general success of today's McD is that they are open nearly 24/7 and that they are nearly everywhere you go. I bet McD makes more money now than back in his "glorious" days.

[Diamons]

Enjoyed the read overall but one line stuck out: "- I take one bite out of my cold Big Mac and eat one cold fries and throw it all out."

You have to be a special kind of asshole to throw away meat and food instead of just saying the food is cold.

[linkregister]

You might not want to visit a farm, processing plant, warehouse, grocery store, or restaurant. They all throw away enormous amounts of food. Throwing away a Big Mac because it got too cold is a rounding error in perspective.

That said, we produce more food than we ever have. Is there a difference to starving people whether a grain of wheat went ungrown or was wasted?

What was the author meant to do, walk the hamburger and fries (with bites missing) to his closest homeless shelter?

[kakarot]

In kindergarten, I starred in a play that haunted me for years and years. My role was to explain the amount of food waste produced by America every year.

I wonder how it is today, but at the time it was on the order of half a billion tons a year.

Spent the rest of my childhood trying to be hyper-conscientious about the waste I produced.

Got to high school, got a job at a local restaurant, eventually moved onto large-scale corporate catering, and then went to live and work on a farm.

As I moved up the scale of food production I only saw more and more waste. It was sickening but at the same time completely understandable when you realize that there are diminishing returns. The larger your business is, the more waste becomes "not worth our time".

I just can't feel bad about throwing away half a pizza here and there anymore.

After I left the farm I took one more job in food service before moving to tech, and that was at a small-scale startup that produces healthy, fresh, TV dinner style foodstuff, and distributes them at retail locations.

I was blown away at how efficient the whole process was. One of the chief philosophies of my boss was conservation. With a business model that revolved around maintaining a supply of each meal reflective of its demand, and making dishes that could be built upon common base ingredients, we were able to exactly calculate the amount of food we needed to make each day. If for some reason there was a piece or two of chicken left, or some rice, an employee would just take it home. I just wish every place could be that committed to not wasting food, by creating a business model that incentivizes such behavior with a better profit margin.

Part of the issue with scale is that this extra profit margin becomes more and more marginal. Supporting local farms, co-ops, and cooks is probably the best thing we can do to enable less food waste across the industry.

[PacketPaul]

About 1/3 of the food in the US is wasted. And this is exactly what we want!

Food is a renewable yet spoilable resource. Easy to create, hard to store long term. Having more food then we need means the system has the capacity to absorb disruptions. If we consumed 100% of the food created, any disruption such as a cold spell in Florida would cause people to go hungry.

[pbhjpbhj]

Resources farmed is not the same as food produced. If you consumed all food produced but had stocks of farmed resources that could be used to make more food (wheat, sesame, beef, onions, say) then with excess capacity you could readily produce more food. Our supply chains are such that we can go from field to table in a day, that allows us to go field to freezer (or canning factory, or whatever) too.

This perhaps relies on non-capitalist management of food production however.

tl;dr I don't agree with your conclusion.

[betenoire]

My head agrees with you. My mom's voice in my head fills me with guilt.

[linkregister]

Mine too. I have the terrible habit of finishing all the food on my plate, even though 1/4 of it will be converted to fat/simple sugars. Our portions are much bigger than those our parents had.

[stephen_g]

Are you talking about in the US? Because they're much larger than most of the rest of the world too!

I was pretty amazed the first time I went - for McDonalds specifically, the US's medium size for drinks and fries is bigger than our large size in Australia! And we have no super-size or drink refills. (Our Burger King equivalent is about the only fast food chain I can think of that does free refills. It's very rare for restaurants in general here).

[maehwasu]

Time to free yourself from the moms.

[msie]

Well, I guess I should give up on recycling and get a gas-guzzling car because doing my share isn't going to make a difference. Maybe I should rob a bank because banks are being robbed everyday. The author could have saved it for later or heated it in a microwave because he spent good money for it.

[PhasmaFelis]

That still wouldn't make it useful. Most westerners consume far more calories than we need to survive. Eating beyond that is just for pleasure; from a purely practical standpoint, it's just as "wasted" as if you threw it away.

[stctgion]

Microwave it like the rest of us

[QuantumGravy]

No no no, you separate out the vegetation, if any, and keep it aside. Microwave any non-vegetable remainder for 15-30 seconds, depending on the mass of the burger: just enough to warm the meat. Transfer from microwave to toaster oven in two halves, toast briefly to crisp the buns, re-sizzle the meat, and melt the cheese. Arrange vegetation back in between. Enjoy a McDonald's burger that rivals its freshly served cousin. Finally, sit back and question the life decisions that lead you to putting this much thought into reheating fast food from McDonald's.

[linkregister]

What about the energy wasted to cook that food? There are freezing Inuit who could have used it.

[chillwaves]

It takes far more energy to create a big mac than to nuke one.

[pc86]

Microwaving fast food french fries is a special kind of alchemy that somehow turns them into concrete.

[baby]

I worked at McDonalds and we would throw burgers after X minutes if they didn't sell. Can't remember what X was but we were throwing a lot of . Same thing with fried stuff like mcnuggets except we would wait longer before throwing it. I don't know why we were following the rules for burgers but not for fried stuff... It all seemed like waste to me because X was pretty short. But this was to ensure good quality, crunchiness and all that jazz. Mind you that it was not a franchise and it was in France (where McDonalds restaurants have higher standards).

[greedo]

Used to be 10 minutes. Not sure now. Fried foods like McNuggets, McChicken and Filet O Fish were kept in a cabinet, then assembled into sandwiches. They were kept for roughly 30 min? The reason for the 10 minute rule was a quality issue; after that amount of time, cheese was gross, and the various condiments were trashed.

[pbhjpbhj]

How tightly do they manage their production rate, presumably they're more careful than just "keep 6 on the warmer" and more like "the usual rate at this time is 70 per hour, we only lose 15% of those sales by asking the customer to wait, 5% of those losses go for other products, so we'll make at a rate of 1 every X minutes unless we have more than Y on hand"? (numbers completely off the top of my head)

[upvotinglurker]

I worked at a franchised US Burger King in the late '90s. The shift manager would tell us how many fully assembled copies of each popular sandwich type to keep on hand. I never saw any charts or evidence of number crunching, but the numbers did vary based on expected traffic for the day of week and time of day, and the popularity of the specific item.

The sandwich wrappers had the numbers 1 to 12 printed on them, and you were supposed to mark the pre-made sandwiches to show when to throw them away. For example, if you assembled the sandwich at 12:15, mark the 5 to show that it should be thrown away when the clock's big hand is on the 5. Literacy not really required.

[greedo]

I worked back before they had installed microwave ovens, so the person in charge of coordinating the production rate had to be a good judge of the sales rate, the abilities of the grill team etc. We usually tried to time things so that we had the most food ready for lunch rush, and then let it tail off so that we didn't waste a huge amount. McDonalds had all sorts of little charts that averaged sales rates per hour, item rates within that hour etc, but a good employee running the "bin" was far better than someone who just used the charts.

[baby]

I was in a pretty busy McDonalds so we were usually asked to do one more of X when doing X, or two more of Y, or 5 more of Z, ... depending on the rush. That's how we ended up trashing some.

That's because, when doing a big mac for example, it's almost as easy to make one or five on a tray. So better make 5 if you're in a rush, they will likely be fulfilled.

In cool periods we would only produce on command. So no waste. Fresh burgers.

Everyone used to say that Franchise didn't care too much about these rules (where they should), and the director didn't like getting employees from Franchise McDonalds because they had to re-learn all the hygiene standards. Since that day I avoid franchise restaurants and go only to the official ones.

[PhasmaFelis]

What do you think they'll do with it if you complain that it's cold? If you don't want it, it's getting tossed either way.

"Eat your peas, there are starving children in Africa" only makes sense if there's a ready means to get your peas to the starving children. If the choices are eating food you don't want or throwing it away, it's wasted either way. Eating it isn't the superior moral option; it doesn't accomplish anything but making you fat.

[gjm11]

Asshole? Why? What harm or pain did Ed cause to anyone by throwing the food away?

[logfromblammo]

The temperature of food can be easily changed with the ubiquitous household appliances called "refrigerator" and "microwave oven". And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor.

It's like throwing your pants away because you spilled ketchup on them, or throwing your car away because it ran out of gas--trivial issue, easily remedied.

Besides that, McDonald's corporate considers the service temperature of their food to be deadly serious. Complaining to the management with cold food and receipt in hand would almost certainly generate an overly obsequious response sufficient to satisfy even the grumpiest of customers. If not, going to management above the restaurant would probably get everyone at the restaurant re-trained right quick.

[ergothus]

> And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor.

Leaving aside the rest of the discussion, and not even addressing if throwing it out was good/fine, this line stood out to me.

I often feel that temperature changes the taste. More obvious in ranges > 5 degrees, but still noticeable at that range. Given how subjective taste is, it's hard to prove, though I'm sure some neurologist has hooked a pig or chimp up to try and measure the "taste" reaction. My two questions for you are:

* Do you feel temperature has no real (direct) effect on taste, or only in larger swings than 5 degrees

* Do you have any reason for your above statement than your own experiences? (not a criticism, curiousity)

[Retric]

It's well known that the current temperature changes the taste. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/temperature-can-eff...

But, I think his comment was changing the temperature is easy, and having food get cold does not change the taste after reheating. However, there is a large food safety issue with how long food stays between 40f and 140f, which is probably the root cause of this policy.

[PhasmaFelis]

> The temperature of food can be easily changed with the ubiquitous household appliances called "refrigerator" and "microwave oven". And it isn't as though a drop in temperature of 5 degrees changes the flavor.

You ever eaten a microwaved hamburger? :)

[logfromblammo]

You know, that gives me an idea for a science fair project. Conduct a blind taste test for the same food prepared in different ways. I'm thinking hot dogs, though.

[msie]

Seems disrespectful to poor, starving people.

[linkregister]

1. 40% of food in the U.S. is discarded. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf

2. Much food is never harvested. A large portion of it is also never taken to market due to blemishes. http://californiawatch.org/health-and-welfare/food-waste-rem...

3. Supermarkets discard about 1/3 of their food due to spoilage, blemishes, and overripeness. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/25/351495274/sup...

[altcognito]

Food that doesn't make it for human consumption at the farm/factory level often finds its way as animal feed.

[msie]

I'm puzzled by your response. You list some stats about waste and that justifies what the guy is doing? Of course it's probably hyperbole but people are working hard to defend this guy's statement.

[Banthum]

Multiplying together, only about 30% of the food grown is actually consumed?

Is that really true? Whoa if so.

Oddly enough, it kind of makes me feel better about food security.

[nicky0]

Is this low, high or average compared to other countries?

[comboy]

With this kind of logic, flushing your toilet is disrespectful to people in Africa with limited access to drinkable water.

[msie]

Well, it is. So don't be wasting water unnecessarily. If you spent time and money eating at McDonald's why would you throw it away? Our society wastes a lot for sure so try not to. Don't go to McDonald's in the first place.

[komali2]

Respectful sure, but I could argue I'm disrespectful to the world's poor every time I light a joint, kick back on my couch, pig out on taco Bell, and watch Vikings in my air conditioned condo.

[msie]

Not the same. You are not throwing out your Taco Bell after the first bite.

[seansoutpost]

This country (USA) throws away $537 Billion retail in food annually. I don't think it's just this guy.

[drakonandor]

Does trash really have a $ value? ;)

[mpeg]

As Dave Chapelle would put it; you can't do comparative suffering.

There might be people starving in Africa, but I still want my lunch.

[msie]

Do you take a bite out of your lunch and then throw it away? :D

[pc86]

Only if you threw it away instead of giving it to a poor, starving person. Between two choice of eating it or throwing it out, neither affects the hungry any more than the other.

[aquadrop]

Is opening a window in a too hot room disrespectful to those who are freezing on the north pole?

[Mz]

The article indicates he tried to suggest to the employee that his fries should not be sitting on a tray getting cold while waiting for a burger and got ignored, nor should a burger be cold if you had to wait for it. I am not even convinced he was being literal. That reads to me as possible hyperbole to emphasize the point that he only goes when it has been so long that he has forgotten how bad it is.

Plus, see other remarks here about how 40% of food goes to waste for various reasons.

[csours]

Kinda OT, but that's why I never buy physically large food items at McD's: the quicker you eat it the warmer it is.

Also, the quicker you eat it, the less you have to think about it; and most of McD's food items do not bear much thinking about.

[freeflight]

Just customize your order in such a way that they have to make it fresh. I don't eat raw tomatoes, so if I tell them not to put those on my burger/wrap/whatever I end up getting freshly made food that's even hot.

[omegaham]

You can specifically ask for them to make it fresh; you just have to be willing to wait around for them to make it.

On a similar note, I hate the "exploit" of "Ask for fries with no salt to get them to make you a fresh batch of fries" when you can just ask them to make you a fresh batch of fries. Potatoes are about $6 per hundred pounds; they could not care less about making you a fresh batch if it means chucking the old fries out.

[jon-wood]

The other thing to hate about asking for fries with no salt is that making them has a fairly high chance of flinging hot oil on yourself. Usually the addition of salt causes the oil to soak in a bit, without the salt it doesn't soak in and gets thrown around the place.

[mpeg]

YMMV too.

Personally, in my local McDonald's I can put an order without talking to a human, pick it up and buy some weed on the way out.

Is that representative of every McD? No.

[pc86]

Other than the lack of human interaction I'm sure it's representative of a fair number of them.

[msie]

Wow, look at all the responses and downvotes. More privileged assholes with money to burn feel it's fine to spend $10 on a meal and just throw it away. Just because there is so must waste doesn't mean that you have to behave like you don't know the value of money.

[averagewall]

What things do you feel it's acceptable to throw away without being a privileged asshole? Is there a way you made this decision that can be generalized beyond Big Macs?

[douche]

Reminds me of the scene from the Into the Wild movie - McCandless is working in a McDonalds-alike fast food joint, and the camera lingers on a signs that says "It's O.K. to waste fries"

[ebbv]

What do you think they're going to do at a McDonald's if you say that? They're going to throw it away and make you a new one.

The reality is most of the food McDonald's serves nowadays is served cold. It's an unfortunate side effect of moving away from actually grilling meat to just warming it in trays.

[dcwca]

I haven't seen child-targets marketing from them in decades here in Canada. Where do you live and what do you see?

[ced]

I don't know about other provinces, but "In Québec, the Consumer Protection Act prohibits commercial advertising directed at children under 13 years of age."

https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/media/documents/consomm...

[wolco]

I wasn't aware of that. Does that include toys or child related products? One could say that movies have turned into one long series of product placements.

[ced]

It seems to be pretty strict, eg.

Example of prohibited advertising: The Rappido Company is advertising a remote-controlled toy car like one seen in an animated film. The advertisement is broadcast on Saturday morning on a TV channel for children during a cartoon program. The ad is in animated film format and shows a young boy who is thrilled to be operating his high-speed car. This ad would be prohibited.

But there's no mention of product placement. I imagine that would be hard to account for.

[elevensies]

Also in Canada, I just assumed they were still doing it -- I don't watch any children-targeted media so I wouldn't see it anyway. I think I saw an ad during the hockey game last night of a kid eating a McMuffin at night. But a quick look at their youtube channel and it seems they're still at it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWMQt_-w75Y

[freeflight]

>I just assumed they were still doing it

Can't really confirm that assumption, even outside of Canada where there's no regulation in place. Last time I remember McDonald's specifically marketing to children was in the 80's, since then they've changed their marketing approach several times focusing more on how "healthy" the food supposedly is or how it's locally sourced.

[douche]

> What impresses me least about McDonald's is their ruthless child-targeted advertising.

I don't have any of the kid-centric television channels, so from the radio and television spots that I've experienced, I would have to say that McDonald's advertising appears to be heavily marketed towards the black community.

For instance, this one has been on heavy rotation in the past few months: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASqC809WaHs

[JohnJamesRambo]

What is wrong with advertising to children? They don't have any money, the parents can always say no or the kids can learn quickly how to determine if they should do what ads tell them to do. They will greatly need that skill in modern America. Teach them early haha.

[lightbyte]

>the kids can learn quickly how to determine if they should do what ads tell them to do.

The problem is they can not do this at all. Children are extremely easy to manipulate, and that is pretty much what advertising is.

[ruleabidinguser]

As a kid I quickly learnt to distrust ads, so I'm not sure why you think kids can't do this. They may not be adults, but they're not robots either.

[emodendroket]

Somehow I don't trust your own judgment of your ability as a child, especially when it is in contrast with the experience of most people and the findings of researchers.

[ruleabidinguser]

I recall it exactly. When you start to trust theory over reality I'm sure you've taken a bad turn.

[batiudrami]

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence! Especially anecdotal data reported by the subject. All you are showing is a fundemental misunderstanding of scientific process.

[emodendroket]

Would you also say you're exceptionally modest?

[lightbyte]

You personally might not be able to, but there is a lot of research that shows children can't always understand that they are watching an advertisement, and what that entails. That's why the US has lots of regulations regarding advertising to children.

[67726e]

> That's why the US has lots of regulations regarding advertising to children.

We have regulation on advertisements to children? That's a little surprising.

[icebraining]

https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/public_sta...

[lightbyte]

This one is more on the data collection side of advertising, but I'd say it's still relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Pr...

[wolco]

I remember at that age understanding that ads are not truthful at a deep level and filtering them. I find it's much harder for me now. Everything seems like an ad now a days and I may not believe the message but having the money to pay for so many ads on expensive platforms gives me a different message. If a company can afford a superbowl ad it gives me the impression the product has resources behind it and I can assign a level of trust.

Kids are better at filtering in some ways.

[emodendroket]

You're talking about the demographic who believes in Santa Claus, right?

[sqeaky]

In a Country that largely believes virgin birth and one very specific zombie.

One crazy belief is not sign of universal insanity. Perhaps though it is a sign of susceptibility, which is what we seem to be talking about.

[ruleabidinguser]

Im certain you just don't see the value in your new perception.

[Hermel]

Good ads work on an emotional level. They work regardless of whether you know you can't trust then.

[ruleabidinguser]

That sounds like nonsense.

[emodendroket]

You will not find a single person in America who believes advertisements are a good neutral source of information, yet they still run them. They run them ever for products everyone has heard of and probably tried at some point. Why do you suppose that might be?

[InitialLastName]

It's all about name recognition. Ads work because they stick the advertiser's brand in your brain, along with some warm and fuzzy feelings. The next time you're hungry on the road, and there's a McDonald's across the street from a Burger King, whoever has your warmer and fuzzier feelings will win.

[Broken_Hippo]

Sure, in some ways, we all did - though I think most of us just got disappointed in a product or two or finally realized the ads weren't realistic.

This wasn't the case with other things, though. I remember really liking Care Bears back in the 80's. My father was appalled when he took me to a movie - he said it was basically an add to get kids to buy the new line of toys. My brother, 11 years younger than I, had the same sort of thing with Power Rangers and then Pokemon. I don't have children and am not quite sure what the current modern version of this is, but I'm sure it is there. Adult versions abound. These aren't the things we can spot so easily, especially as children with little world experience.

[mpeg]

Do you interact with any kids lately? They're all absolutely obsessed with the latest thing that is being pushed on them.

Minecraft, Pokemon Go, Star Wars...

[emodendroket]

To be fair you're describing a significant portion of the user base here as well.

[wslh]

> the parents can always say no or the kids can learn quickly...

The parents need to spend a lot of time to counteract those evil forces and you cannot teach a kid to not like the amazing toy he/she is watching on TV. You can teach them that they can receive presents on specific date though.

[infinite8s]

You can also get rid of your TV and not expose them to ads at all.

[wslh]

TV is only one source of ads, YouTube, games, and other web/mobile resources are full of ads. I cannot get rid of all of them without creating creatures from another planet.

[emodendroket]

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/6/2563

> Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising. They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value. In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years. What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.

[analog31]

In my view, conducting a psychological campaign at an intensity that is known to be far beyond the ability of many people to withstand, is unethical.

On the other hand, I do teach my kids about advertising. They are quite skeptical about it.

[dvtv75]

As a friend of mine explained (his Master's Thesis used this topic), the idea that the marketer is trying to get them to spend money on something is simplistic and misguided. What's actually happening is they're trying to create a brand awareness, and a (subconscious) positive association, so that the child will grow up to feel positively toward the business or product.

About 10 or 15 years ago, there was a McDonalds ad that had parents dressing up. The kids exclaimed "The black suit! You know what that means!" "McDonalds for breakfast!" Cut to the kids smiling and happy while eating at McDonalds.

Positive associations are simple to create, particularly in those unaware of what you are doing.

[rangibaby]

http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/kid-marketing/

[winfred]

Haha, thanks buddy, I didn't know websites could trigger nostalgia. Brings back memories from twenty years ago, amazing it's still around with the exact same layout.

[rangibaby]

IKR? The Rotten Library is a great time capsule of the early 00s. Atlas Obscura has a similar style of writing but is a little but too "normal" for my taste :-)

[ianai]

It's not healthy food.